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Font and Glyph Overview

Silhouette America®offers fonts available for download through our website under the Fonts menu.

The Silhouette can also cut other fonts installed on your computer through the use of the Silhouette Studio® software program. You do not need to download these into the Silhouette software. Any True Type (.ttf) or Open Type (.otf) font installed on your computer in your font directory will show up as an available option for cutting letters once the Silhouette software is opened. Please note that some fonts may not be designed for optimal cutting, so we cannot guarantee that every font style will cut well with the Silhouette.

Most fonts purchased from the Silhouette Design store should download and install automatically into your Silhouette Studio library. To access certain Premium Fonts, they may need to be installed manually to your computer. To do so, please use the steps below:

Download the font file from the Design Store:

  1. Close out of the Silhouette Studio software
  2. Using a web browser, navigate here
  3. Select the order containing the desired font file
  4. Check the Download box for all fonts you would like to download
  5. Select the Download Now button
  6. A zipped folder will be downloaded to your default download location, it will be named after the Design Store Order Number

Install the font on a PC:

  1. Depending on your download environment, the download may show in the downloads section of your browser OR in the default download location
  2. Open the downloaded folder
  3. Double-click on the desired font to install
  4. A font management window will open
  5. Select the Install option in the upper-left of the window
  6. The Install button will turn grey, indicating that the font has been installed

Install the font on a MAC:

  1. Depending on your download environment, the download may show in the downloads section of your browser OR in the default download location
  2. Open the downloaded folder
  3. Double-click on the desired font to install
  4. A font management window will open
  5. Select the Install option in the lower-right of the window
  6. The font management window will close, indicating that the font has been installed

The current version of Silhouette Studio, or any version 4.1.441 and higher, will support automatic installation of Premium Fonts. To update your software, please visit here.

A monogram is a decorative motif of two or more letters. There are two different kinds of monograms available on the Silhouette Design Store:

  • Monogram Cut Files
  • Monogram Fonts.

Please note that these are distinctly different types of files.

Monogram Cut Files download from the store to the “Recent Downloads” folder of your library as a .STUDIO3 formatted file. These files are simply a design that cannot be modified by typing with your keyboard. If the design comes with multiple letters, you can Ungroup the pieces and move the letters to customize the monogram.

Monogram Fonts, however, will download from the store to the “Fonts” folder of your library and can be manipulated by your keyboard using the Text Tool in Silhouette Studio.

While the thumbnail picture may appear similar between these two different kinds of files available on the store, they are different. A simple method of telling them apart is that a Monogram Font will typically have an icon of “Aa” in the bottom left corner of its preview window designating that it is a Font file rather than a Regular Cut file.

We offer many fonts on the Silhouette Design Store that include glyphs. In typography, a Glyph is “the specific shape, design, or representation of a character”. For the fonts offered by Silhouette, glyph can refer to anything from a letter to a symbol, flourish, or a dingbats image.

If you are currently using the Basic version of Silhouette Studio, or if the font glyphs cannot be seen in your glyphs panel*, you can access these characters using the standard operating system Character Map on your computer. To do this:

PC/WINDOWS:

  1. Press the Windows key and R-key simultaneously
  2. Type in charmap and press Enter
  3. The Character Map window will appear
  4. In the Font drop-down, navigate to the desired font
  5. Check the box next to Advanced View
  6. In the Group by drop-down, navigate to Unicode Subrange
  7. The Group By window will pop up next to the Character Map window
  8. Scroll to the bottom of the Group By window and select Private Use Characters. All available glyphs should now be displayed in the Character Map.
  9. In the Font box, click the font you want to use.
  10. Click the special character that you want to insert, click Select, and then click Copy
  11. Open Silhouette Studio® software
  12. Click the Text Tool
  13. On the Edit menu, click Paste
  14. Click to select the pasted text with the gray selection box
  15. Click the Text Style Panel
  16. Choose the font from the list

MAC:

  1. Open the Finder
  2. Open the Applications option
  3. Open the Font Book application
  4. Select the View Menu
  5. Select the Repertoire option
  6. Find the font and character you wish to use
  7. Click to select the desired character
  8. Press Command + c to copy
  9. Open Silhouette Studio® software
  10. Click the Text Tool
  11. On the Edit menu, click Paste (or press Command + v)
  12. Click to select the pasted text with the gray selection box
  13. Click the Text Style Panel
  14. Choose the font from the list

Your text should show up after following these steps. If it does not, again please note that there is a limitation to how much the Silhouette Studio® program can accept being pasted and you may need to copy and paste smaller strings of text rather than a larger section of text all at once.

For more ease of access to special characters and glyphs, we offer a glyph support feature in our Designer Edition software upgrade. If you wish to purchase the Designer Edition and utilize the glyphs panel, please visit here.

*At present, Silhouette Studio does not support all available glyph libraries utilized by font creators, however the above steps will allow access to all available glyph libraries.

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